Categories: Business

CBN Grants Flutterwave Payment Processing Licence

Flutterwave, one of Africa’s leading payment technology companies has been granted a Switching and Processing Licence by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The licence allows Flutterwave to offer transaction switching and card processing services to customers. Others include non-bank acquiring, agency banking and payment gateway services.
According to a statement, the Switching and Processing licence allows Flutterwave to enable transactions between banks, fintechs and other financial institutions.

It noted that the company is also able to process card transactions, participate in agency banking and offer various payment services without any intermediary. Prior to this license, Flutterwave operated with its Payment Solution Service Provider (PSSP) and International Money Transfer Operator (IMTO) licenses.

Commenting on the development, the CEO and Founder of Flutterwave, Olugbenga Agboola said, “This is big news for our customers, partners, investors, and other stakeholders. It is an important milestone in our growth story. Building a thriving payments ecosystem in Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, is in line with our goal of developing a world class and secure payment infrastructure for global merchants and payment service providers across the continent.”

Also, Flutterwave’s Chief Regulatory and Government Affairs Officer, Oluwabankole Falade said, “We’re thrilled to have been issued this license after fulfilling all of the regulatory requirements. The application process was very rigorous and included a detailed review of our operations as a business.

“As a switch, we have more responsibilities and will continue to work with regulators to ensure we meet and exceed their expectations.”

Reacting to the news, the company’s Head of Product Marketing, Onyedikachim Nwankwo, said, “The license will allow us to offer more services and explore more payment use cases for our ecosystem. With this licence, we can offer more value to our customers while taking more control of our value chain to enable an improved payments experience for our enterprise, medium scale and retail customers.”

The application and review process by the CBN was a tough and rigorous process that examined every aspect of Flutterwave’s business, including the company’s financial position.